Removing Taps

[Mike Wacker]

Newbie Questions. First year tapping and boiling. Had a ball. I assume I should plug the holes in my trees after I pull my taps. If so, what do people do to plug the holes?

[adk1]

NO! just let them heal naturally

[802maple]

The trees are better off healing themselves then plugging the holes.

[500592]

plugging the holes will cause the tree to take a very long time to heal and or may make it sick or worse die

[tpatch361]

Leave them alone. They will be completely shut and healed over by next spring. What is pretty cool is when loggers log old maples that where tapped a long time ago you can see the tap marks in the wood when you plane them. I did a cabinet out of sugar maple that had the tap hole marks in the board from many years ago. Pains me that the project was for a friend. At that time I wasn't doing the syrup. So I didn't appreciate the marks.